Do not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God. – Exodus 34:12

Today’s Scripture Reading (August 8, 2015): Exodus 34

In 2006, Pilgrim United Church in Chicago was destroyed by fire. The building was designed by influential Chicago architect, Louis Sullivan (1856-1924) and is considered to be the birthplace of Gospel Music. Following the fire, many of the residents of the city demanded that the historic church be restored. But in almost ten years since the fire, almost nothing has been done to start the restoration process. And there are serious questions about where the $37 million that is needed to complete the restoration is going to come from. It is obvious that the church members, which are both aging and have been declining in number in recent years, are not going to be able to pay the bill. So who will? The church has become an eyesore to the community, and now members of the community are beginning to speak out. They don’t care what, but they want something to be done – and they want it done now.

The truth is that nothing is meant to last forever, but not all things are created equal. Many things designed and built by our disposable society are built to someday throw away. The church building in which I worship is nothing more than a concrete box. If a fire destroyed it, no one – not even those within the congregation - would demand that the building be rebuilt. In fact, many might take it as an opportunity to redesign the building into something different – maybe in the same spot, but maybe not. There is simply nothing special about this building. But other churches within a few miles of this building are in similar positions as Chicago’s Pilgrim United. These are churches that are special, they have been designed by great men and have a history that many think needs to be preserved. But the preservation and repair of these buildings are often beyond the economic reality of the local congregation. And so there is a tug of war between what these buildings mean to the history of our culture and our cities, and the economic reality of what it will cost to restore and maintain these old buildings. And right now we are not sure which force – history or money – is going to win the battle.

In this passage we find an unusual name for God. He is called Jealous - and jealousy is something that we seem to believe is not compatible with the character of God. But the key to God’s jealousy is actually found in the nature of Israel. Israel was his possession – he considered this nation to be his children. And it would seem that he meant it. Israel was precious to him, so precious that he would pay any price for them. He would not sit back while they walked away from him to one of the incompetent gods that had begun to be worshiped by the nations that they would meet. They were his possession – and Israel was important enough to him that he would describe himself as Jealous.

But it would take a God who describes himself as Jealous to take the action in defense of his children that this God took – the sacrifice of his Son on cross for us; first for the Jews and then for the Gentiles. This jealous God said he would pay any price – and that is exactly what he did. It was an act that could only come from a God who was called Jealous.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Exodus 35

Then Moses said to him, “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here.” – Exodus 33:15

Today’s Scripture Reading (August 7, 2015): Exodus 33

In 2005 Peter Schwiezer, a political consultant and the current president of the Institute for Government Accountability, release his book entitled “Do as I Say (Not as I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy.” Schweizer’s premise was that political liberals have a tendency to talk a better liberal game than what they live – which Schwiezer insists is made even more annoying because of their smug moral superiority The book attempted to compare the words of leading liberals, such as the Bill and Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi and Michael Moore, with their actual actions. And what he found was that there were some glaring inconsistencies. It seems that our liberal leaders are unwilling to live up to their own instructions.

Revelations, such as the ones surrounding Bill Cosby in recent days, tell us that the story probably hasn’t changed, and it may be more than just the political liberals who are struggling to live up to their words. The world that our words say that we want to create is not one that we seem willing to create with our actions. And that discrepancy is significant and important.

God tells Moses that his presence will be with him. Literally the word that is translated ‘presence’ in this passage means face. God is telling Moses that his face will go with him. It is the reason why Moses was considered to be the one who had met with God ‘face to face’ – or ‘presence to presence.’ The commitment was that as long as Moses decided to be fully present with God, then God would be fully present with Moses.

But Moses response is maybe a little surprising, and it foreshadows effectively what is about to happen. Moses declares that he is uninterested in the pleasantries of life that might exist in Canaan. His interest is not in a land ‘flowing with milk and honey;’ all that he desires is the presence of God. “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here.”  Canaan was a land filled with all of the good things of life. But according to Moses he would rather stay in the desert with the presence of God then to go into Canaan without him.

The words would prove to be prophetic. Moses would end up spending the next forty years – literally the rest of his life – in the desert, refusing to lead Israel into Canaan without the face of God leading them. But every day he spent in the desert would be spent in the presence of God. Every day in the desert would be spent with Moses meeting face to face with his God.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Exodus 34

 

He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, “These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.” – Exodus 32:4

Today’s Scripture Reading (August 6, 2013): Exodus 32

Baltimore set a grim record last month. Forty-three murders in July tops the list for homicides in any single month for the past forty-three years (the last time the city exceeded that number was the forty-five who were killed in August 1972.) The murders are simply a symptom of a people who have surrendered to despair. A lack of jobs, an increasing discrepancy between the rich and poor, elevated drug related violence and violence that is racially motivated has been at the core of the murders. And it is not just Baltimore that is in trouble. Violence is up in several major cities in the U.S. We have a problem. And we have yet to prove that we are willing to anything about it – that is other than to insist that someone else is the cause of what is wrong.

There is an obvious answer to the problem. As a culture we seem to have devoted everything that we have to the gods our culture has chosen to worship. Oh, I know, we would never admit that we even have gods, but we do. Drugs, both legal and illegal, have become a widespread god of our choosing, one that demands much from us. But maybe the bigger god is our own bigotry. We have come to hate everything that is not like us. Our hate exists on an economic level, a racial level and a sexual preference level (or whatever else we may find that separates us.) The hate has burned and consumed us until we barely even realize that it exists. We hate because we believe it is right to hate. Even within Christian circles, we have surrendered everything that we have to this false god. We have even convinced ourselves that this god of hate is the one God of the Christian church. We are wrong, and one of the symptoms is the violence of which our culture has found itself in the midst. And the fuel of this violence emanates from the fact that we have devoted everything that we have to our new god.

Moses has been too long on the mountain. The people have grown impatient of waiting for Moses and this God of Israel. So Aaron and the leaders of the people make a decision. They will create new gods. They ask the people to devote everything that they have to these new gods, and the people respond. They fashion a calf from the materials that they have at their disposal and then they unveil their creation – Israel, here is your god, the god to which you have devoted all that you are.

The decision impacted Israel for generations. In this one act we find the seeds of disobedience that would continually plague Israel as a nation for the rest of its existence. And generations from now these words will be spoken again – almost to the word. This time the words would be spoken by the king on the advent of the northern tribes breaking away from the Kingdom of Judah. After seeking advice, the king made two golden calves. He said to the people, “It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Here are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt” (1 Kings 12:28). Bad ideas seem to reappear, especially when we are willing to give to them all that we have.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Exodus 33

Note: We remember the bombing of Hiroshima on this day 70 years ago, and we weep for all those who were lost on every side during that terrible war. This was the first time a Weapon of Mass Destruction was used in war.

When the LORD finished speaking to Moses on Mount Sinai, he gave him the two tablets of the covenant law, the tablets of stone inscribed by the finger of God. – Exodus 31:18

Today’s Scripture Reading (August 5, 2015): Exodus 31

Mark Cuban says that he is surprised that Tom Brady’s four game suspension for “deflategate” was not lengthened. The reason: because of Brady’s behavior after the accusations that the future Hall of Fame quarterback was involved, or at least possessed the knowledge of, the fact that that the game balls were being deflated. The problem is that it is assumed that a ball with less air in it is both easier to catch and easier to carry. There are many who question that assumption, but by the letter of the law the New England Patriots and their quarterback cheated – thus the four game suspension to Brady. But when the NFL subpoenaed Brady’s cell phone to get a record of the texts that Brady had sent and received, Brady destroyed his cell phone and any possibility of confirming what it was that he knew. And according to Cuban, that action is worse than the original crime – and the reason why he believed that suspension might have been increased.

But that also presents a problem. There is a paradox to life as we begin to move through the digital age. Nothing is permanent, and yet everything is. Once anything is released into the digital environment, it never disappears, but on the other hand it can’t always be retrieved. It is a paradox that we are just learning to deal with. Maybe one of stating the paradox is to say that nothing, and yet everything, is written in stone.

The origin of the phrase “written in stone” or “set in stone” or “carved in stone” comes from this passage. The idea is that these laws that God had instituted were intended to be permanent, but unlike information from our digital age, it is meant to be easily retrieved. God wrote the laws into stone where his instructions could not easily be erased (although Moses in anger did break the first set of tablets – maybe something like Brady’s destruction of his cell phone, but with a very different purpose in mind.) The two stones were to be placed in the Ark of the Covenant where they would stay as evidence of God intention for Israel for the generations of the nation that were yet to come. It is likely that the original tablets, which were most likely rectangular in shape rather than having rounded tops as we have come to imagine them, were lost when Solomon’s Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians. But the information that the stones contained were placed in the collective memory of a nation.

Although the tablets are long gone now, we believe that what they contained was the Ten Commandments. There is a bit of disagreement over how the commandments were placed on the tablets. Some believe that there were five on each tablet, others believe that all Ten Commandments were placed on each tablet, making a duplicate copy of the first as would be common with any legal document. The law given by God for all time.

For the Christian, it is interesting that the Christian Testament reinforces nine of the Ten Commandments. The only commandment that the Christian Testament omits is the command to keep the Sabbath Day holy. And there is a reason for the omission. For the Christian, the Sabbath (seventh day) has become the Eighth day – the day that Jesus rose from the dead and changed everything. And this is the reason why the Community of Jesus followers from the very beginning have decided to celebrate Sunday as our holy day – not the first day, but rather the eighth day, all in honor of the God who came to us and defeated death on our behalf.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Exodus 32

Once a year Aaron shall make atonement on its horns. This annual atonement must be made with the blood of the atoning sin offering for the generations to come. It is most holy to the LORD.” – Exodus 30:10

Today’s Scripture Reading (August 4, 2015): Exodus 30

The name Cecil has taken onto itself a different meaning since the illegal killing of what might have been Africa’s favorite lion. The alpha male lion was apparently shot by a Minnesota dentist. The charge against him and his guides is that he lured the Lion out of the protected environment of the National Park in which he lived, and then hunted it with a bow and arrow. He injured Cecil with the bow, but the arrow did not kill him. So for the next forty hours the dentist hunted the Lion until he was finally able to shoot him again; this time with his gun. Then he skinned the lion and decapitated him hoping to use the head as a trophy for his kill. He paid over $50,000 for the experience. And the outcry against the dentist has been overwhelming, to the point where the dentist may have to close his practice. Talk show hosts have been asking their audiences if there is anything that the dentist can do to earn forgiveness. Maybe not surprisingly considering the crime, the answer has been a resounding no.  There can be no forgiveness for a man who would dare to undertake this kind of crime.

I get it, I really do. But there is something depressing not just about the crime, but about the public’s reaction to the crime. There is no doubt that the crime is heinous. But the problem is that deep inside of ourselves we know that we are guilty of crimes. No, we have never tried to kill Cecil the Lion, but we have done some other bad things. Maybe we didn’t get caught, but all that means is that we will spend the rest of our lives running away from that part of ourselves. Sometimes I wonder if we are so zealous to persecute the crimes of others, like this dentist from Minnesota, because it is part of our journey away from our own sins. The reality check is simply this, we have all done some really stupid things. Granted, some people do stupider things than others, but every one of us has the capacity to be stupid.

God recognized this talent of ours for trouble. So once a year, on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kipper) an animal would be sacrificed on the altar of sacrifice for all of the sins of the people. And a portion of the blood would be removed from that altar of sacrifice and taken to the altar of incense. The blood was a reminder of both the sins of the people and the forgiveness of God – and while the Day of Atonement only happened once a year, incense was lit on a daily basis. And the blood on the horns of the altar of incense was a continual reminder of the forgiveness that God had offered to his people. They were forgiven from all of the stupid things that they had done.

The incense of the altar has often been connected with the prayer of the believer (May my prayer be set before you like incense; may the lifting up of my hands be like the evening sacrifice – Psalm 141:2.) But just as the incense rose from an altar whose horns were stained with the blood of the sacrifice offered on the Day of Atonement, so our prayers rise from the blood stained cross on which our forgiveness and our atonement is found. No matter what it is that we have done, there is forgiveness at the foot of the cross.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Exodus 31

For the generations to come this burnt offering is to be made regularly at the entrance to the tent of meeting, before the LORD. There I will meet you and speak to you; there also I will meet with the Israelites, and the place will be consecrated by my glory. - Exodus 29:42-43

Today’s Scripture Reading (August 3, 2015): Exodus 29

The Bilderberg Group is an annual private conference that includes 120-150 of the world’s most significant thinkers and politicians from Europe and North America (the most recent one took place in Austria in June 2015.) The purpose of the Bilderberg Group is vague, and that combined with the secret nature of the group has left the group open to criticism from all sides. And one of the conspiracy theories that the secrecy has generated is that the Bilderberg Group is all about world domination – or at the very least the determination of the way the world works that has been designed by a very small group of people. The Group has not denied this goal, although they obviously don’t believe that the goal of a one world government has anything sinister in its nature. Denis Healey, a British Politician and one of the original founders of the group, said: "To say we were striving for a one-world government is exaggerated, but not wholly unfair. Those of us in Bilderberg felt we couldn't go on forever fighting one another for nothing and killing people and rendering millions homeless. So we felt that a single community throughout the world would be a good thing."

But it is the secrecy of the group that seems to be the real asset – and the problem. Because it is private, what is said in the meetings stays in the meetings – anyone can say anything without it impacting their careers. But on the other hand, because it is private, those outside the meeting can only guess at what is happening on the inside – and therefore the ever present conspiracy theories that surround the group begin.

It would seem that the place of meeting for Israel was designed for the reverse process. Israel stands alone as a faith that has demanded a daily sacrifice (in modern times this might be compared to daily devotions with God.) Daily a sacrifice was to be burned at the entrance of the house of meeting – a ritual that Israel actually followed, except for times of extreme apostasy, as long as a temple in Jerusalem was standing. The last daily sacrifice was offered in Jerusalem in the year 70 C.E., just before the Temple was destroyed by the Romans.

But all of this is not just to fulfill the worship requirements of God. And it is also not an effort designed to create an equipped labor force to carry out the work of God in the world. The daily sacrifices were designed to create a people who were willing and prepared to be in conversation with their God. There were to be no secrets, God wanted to be in a daily dialog with his people. There may have been places where the people were not allowed to go, but they were to have a clear understanding of what was happening – even behind the closed doors of the Tabernacle and the Temple. The work of God was a public work.

And it continues to be a public work. Secrets have always been deadly to the church. There are times when we need to maintain confidences and protect people – but the work of God is a public work, after all, it was the public world into which God sent his son.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Exodus 30

Engrave the names of the sons of Israel on the two stones the way a gem cutter engraves a seal. Then mount the stones in gold filigree settings and fasten them on the shoulder pieces of the ephod as memorial stones for the sons of Israel. Aaron is to bear the names on his shoulders as a memorial before the LORD. – Exodus 28:11-12

Today’s Scripture Reading (August 2, 2015): Exodus 28

Last week North Korea decided to use the sixty-second anniversary of the Korean War Cease fire to take a shot (figuratively) at the United States. The nation has now been at war with their Southern counterparts for over sixty-five years, although the actual fighting was terminated with a cease-fire on July 27, 1953 after a little more than three years of fighting (the T.V. series M*A*S*H actually lasted almost four times longer than the actual conflict that it described.) Officially, the war is considered to be a stalemate with all attempts at invasion by the enemy fighters being repelled, but on the anniversary of the cease-fire North Korea chose to put a different spin on the war. They won it and set in motion the beginning of the downfall of the United States, and if the United States dared to ever set its military feet on Korean soil again, North Korea will finish it. And while President Kim Jong Un hinted at North Korea’s new nuclear weapons aimed at the south, General Pak Yong Sik commented that if the United States wanted to resume the fighting, North Korea would make sure that there was not one American left alive on the Korean Peninsula to sign a peace treaty.

No doubt the words stung some sensitive American army officials, and behind the scenes there have probably been exaggerated discussions about removing North Korea from the face of the earth – something that we all know the United States would never commit to – but the reality is that these are just words that lack substance. There is no work behind them. These are words intended to boost the confidence of what we believe is an extremely poor nation. Nothing in the North Korean speeches are real, they are rhetoric designed to impress the ignorant. A renewed war in Korea would be difficult on both sides – just as the first one was. The United States has no interest in going back, although they do probably wish that North Korea would play nice.

God begins to give Moses detailed instructions on the clothes that the priest are to wear. And on the shoulders the High Priest was to wear two onyx stones which have been engraved with the names of sons or the tribes of Israel. Six names would have been written on each stone. But what is interesting is the placement of the stones. The stones are not to be placed on some sort of a hat or headband to be worn on the head indicating that the tribes would be forever in his thoughts. And the stones are not be placed on a vest that would keep them on the heart of the High Priest indicating that at the core of his being he would bear the concerns of the nation before God. The stones are to be placed on the shoulders. Shoulders are the place that we bear our burdens. With our shoulders, we work.

The High Priest’s first duty was always to God, but the stones on his shoulders reminded him of who he worked on behalf of – Israel. The things spoken by the High Priest were never to be idle rhetoric. The High Priest was never to engage in ungodly conversation. While he wore his ephod with the names of the tribes on his shoulders, he worked hard before God and on behalf of Israel. Nothing could be more important to the High Priest than the work that he was to do. And by this he would set the example of godly behavior before the people.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Exodus 29